Chapter 8 Questionnaire surveys

Questionnaire or interview schedule; the garthering of information from individuals using a formally desgined schedule of questions.Proportion or sample is based on the researchers interested in. Problem; Some respondents may exaggerate the results when they are interviewed. The researchers should avoid the falling into the trap of believing that TRUTH.

Collect, analysed and interpreted.

An ideal means of providing quantified information for organisations

To provide some clear research methods to keep the survey transparent.

More accuracy, higher response rates, fuller and more complete answers, and design can be less' user-friendly'

Higher cost, less anonymity, exaggerated desire to please interviewer

Sometimes, Email is a better choice for the research.

Cheaper, quicker, relatively anonymous

Pathy response, incomplete response, risk of frivolous responses, more care needed in layout and presentation.

Advantage: They are generally respresentative of a defined community. It cover an amount of people who are in different occupation. Problem: The respondents might be too busy to fill the survey so that the researchers should have responibilty to make the survey prefectly. The combination of interviewer-completed and respondent-completed elements. For example, when the research is related to the society, it should be foucsed on the groups who are in the same traits and individuals who are different from others. Disadvantage: the most expensive to conduct.

Clients collect and design the questions about age,gender or family to contribute the data.It is very benefical because the clients know their needs and ideas demanded by the respondents so that they can design the questions very suitable for the repondents.

How to solve the problem that some people who do not have telephone or have mobile phone not list in the white pages? The explanation is neglect the people because the people are not the main representation of the society.

The people might grow into the main parts in the community. So I think the point is not so correct. At last, not preferctly right.

Advantage: a large sample can be surveyed at low cost.Compare to the telephone survey, how come the email survey is so easy to get the email address?Is that the respondent tell the researchers other respondents the email address?

Low resonse rates7 factors affecting mail survey responses: 1 the interrst of the resondent in the survey topic2 The length of the qyestionnaire3. Questionnaire design, presentation and complexity4. The style, content and authorship of the accompanying letter5. The provision of a reply-paid envelope6. Rewards for responding 7. The number and timing of reminders and follow-ups

Email can be used simply to transmit a letter of request and an attached copy of a questionnaire to potential respondents. Respondents can print out the attached questionnaire, fill it out and mail it back to the researcher.

E-survey is confined to those with access to the Internet and, while the sending of reminders is cheap.

Customer survey method could have been fairly multipurpose.

When respondent completion is thought to be desireable or necessary, sufficient staff should be employed to collect completed questionnaires.

Customer surveys by interview is generally preferable to respondent completion. It is reasonable to expect interviewers in such situations to complete about six interviews in an hour.The customer survey should be more specific and convenient way to gathering data on a particular activity.How to have a specific survey in a particular acitivity??

Interview method can also be used with captive groups, although this is not as cost-effective as respondent-completed questionnaires.THe research advantage of a captive group is that access to members of the group is usually facilitated and members of the group are gathered together in one place at one time.

Organisation surveys can take a variety of forms including telephone surveys, mail-outs or captive group surveys. They can be interviewer-completed or respondent-completed. In choosing a sample it needs to be recognized that senior staff can usually provide more reliable information concerning the operation of their administrative units than junior staff, but senior staff may be unable to describe the experiences and perceptions of lower level employees.

Comparsion between the research and previous research on the topic or related topicsThe form of hupotheses,theories,models or evaluative frameworks should be clear and should guide the questionnaire design process.

Individuals and organisation's characteristicsSome individual's elements might influence the organisation's elements such as income influences captial, education influences sales or number of clients.

Some principles which the researchers should avoid: avoid jargon, simplify wherever possible, aviod ambiguity, avoid leading questions and ask only one question at a time

People's attitudes and opinions should be explored to examize. Some examples are given in Figure 8.7

It is necessary for respondents to rank items?

What is the standard of the scales? Their agreement or disagreement related to the factor?

There is a relationship between the attitude and sacle and the relationship might affect the survey data.